“Days like these made being a Navy SEAL seem definitely easier than being an elementary school principal.”

FINAL DECISION: Passionate, romantic, funny, fabulous and so incredibly normal. This is my favorite book of the year so far…and I’m not sure another book is going to be able to top it.

THE STORY: Eden Harwood was the good girl who ended up pregnant. She adores and dedicates her life to her ten year old daughter and her life is busy and seems full until something starts with the elementary school principal Gabe Caldera. Gabe destroys any stereotypes of what a school principal should look like. When the two begin a lot of flirtation, Eden realizes that she might be missing something that she needs. In that moment, the secret of her daughter’s paternity that Eden has kept for ten years may not be secret much longer and might just destroy the relationship that Gabe and Eden are building.

OPINION: This might be the most beautiful book about love that I have ever read, but at the very least it is the best book I have read this year so far and I can’t really imagine another book topping it.

So much is written about love and romance but this book has something really important to say — love is not only about the rush of excitement and lust but also about constancy and stability and being there.

I read this book without stopping from the first to last page — not because of the suspense or the drama — but because of the quietness of the romance. How it fills all the spaces in the lives of these characters. How it exists in the reality of real lives. How often do I turn to romance as escapism? — read about a duke or a billionaire or a famous actor. This is the story of a single mother florist who falls for a school principal during the car pickup and community meetings.

Now I know that I’ve turned off some people who might say “I don’t need to read about my own boring normal life” but I urge you to give this book a chance. Because this book beautifully gives everyone hope: the single mother who doesn’t have a moment to herself, the serious man who has a life filled with responsibilities, those who have made mistakes that effect the rest of their lives, those who have suffered loss.

This book filled me up with joy and wonder and such a sense of peace by its end. Sometimes, often times, when I finish a book I enjoy, I have a difficult time writing the review. The book just takes all the space and I have trouble expressing what about the book captivated me. This sometimes causes a problem because I am quickly off to the next book and I hate having reviews backed up.

This book was different. I felt filled to the brim and overflowing and all I wanted to do was write this review. And I had no immediate interest to fill the space with another book.

Gabe and Eden are so normal that I couldn’t imagine that Julie Anne Long would be able to keep up the interest and tension. But by using the absolutely ordinary events as a flirty and significant interchange between the two, the book manages to fill all the regular moments in their lives with meaning and passionate tension, but always with a humor and an joy in the small things.  Never has a normal life been so sexy.

WORTH MENTIONING: There is even a tiny Pennyroyal Green reference for fans of Long’s prior historical series.

CONNECTED BOOKS: THE FIRST TIME AT FIRELIGHT FALLS is the fourth book in the Hellcat Canyon series. The book can be read as a standalone although there are characters from the other books who appear here.

STAR RATING: I give this book 5 amazing stars.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book via Edelweiss in order to assist me in preparing this review. I was not required to write a review and I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

“He’d had nothing but good-natured scorn when she’d told him about her fantasy of slow dancing on Devil’s Leap to what she thought of as her namesake song, Roxy Music’s ‘Avalon’, ‘Of, Avalon. That’s just ridiculous. No one actually does that kind of thing in real life.'”

FINAL DECISION: Another simply lovely addition to the Hellcat Canyon series. Long has such a lyrical and beautifully emotional way of depicting characters who have come to Hellcat Canyon with their world ripped apart. A second chance at love romance filled with humor and deeply emotional moments, Avalon and Mac’s story is a welcome addition.

THE STORY:  Avalon Harwood has (temporarily) returned to Hellcat Canyon after her perfect relationship and business partnership has blown up and she needs time to make decisions. She comes home and finds an opportunity in purchasing the Coltrane estate. She intends on flipping the house as part of her dealing with her heartbreak. The estate has memories for Avalon. Her younger self worshiped the rich son Mac Coltrane until he broke her heart. After his father was convicted of fraud, the family fell apart. Mac has returned and when Avalon snaps up the house under his nose, he is determined to convince her to change her mind.

OPINION:  I can hardly express how much I love the Hellcat Canyon series. Each of the books has such a different romance. This book is a second chance at love story. Avalon and Mac had a chance together when they were younger, but Mac was spoiled and insecure and unable to recognize the value of what he had.

But he has recognized it in the intervening years.

“It took him a long time to adjust to her absence. He hadn’t realized that she was the lens he’d begun to see nearly everything through. That even though she was kind of a secret, she was also, in a way, his center of gravity. And when it was clear he was just never going to see her again, life had taken on a peculiar, almost dreamlike quality. What he did had ceased to matter because nothing had consequences in a dream.”

Both Avalon and Mac in this story have lived a non-consequential “dream” world in the intervening years. Life has happened to them. When they reunite, it is like they wake up and rediscover a life of meaning and value.

The story really revolves around the idea of living a life of active participation.  Avalon sees her “perfect” world fall apart and finds herself yearning for a life that reflects what decisions she makes — what she actually decides she wants rather than what happens to her.

Mac, too, has had to confront the absence of meaning in life. Growing up privileged, Mac accepted everything that his privilege entailed and tossed away those things that could bring meaning. Losing everything has forced him to figure out how to start from the bottom and create a life that he wants. He has done this in the financial world and in his business life, but it takes the reappearance of Avalon for him to find out what actually has meaning in life.

I loved these characters and I loved their interaction. A book that is almost entirely centered on the estate, the “claustrophobia” of Mac and Avalon’s interaction allows them to have some of the funniest banter and one-ups-man-ship that I have read. These two are completely competitive with one another and they know one another so well (and yet they have so many secrets and mysteries from the intervening years), that they can needle one another. I laughed and snickered at Avalon and Mac’s antics.

In a wonderful manner, the humor and lightness turns into deeply emotional and revealing events. Mac and Avalon not only know one another, but they have hurts which can only be healed by one another.

As the title itself expresses, this book is about finding meaning. As we learn, Mac has mocked Avalon’s dream of dancing on Devil’s Leap seeing it as hokey and silly. One might guess that through his examination and refocusing on his life and encountering true relationship with Avalon, he invests Avalon’s dream with intense meaning and significance on a personal level between them.

The worst part of this series is having to wait to read the next book.

WORTH MENTIONING:  I really missed the Eternity Oak in this story along with the quirky town characters since this book is really focused on the Coltrane estate.

CONNECTED BOOKS:  DIRTY DANCING AT DEVIL’S LEAP is the third book in the Hellcat Canyon series. The series has continuing characters, but this romance is completely self contained. In fact, this book is only tangentially related to the rest of the series and most of the continuing characters don’t make any appearances so this book can be read completely on its own.  (But this series is so good, go ahead and read the others as well).

STAR RATING:  I give this book 4.5 stars.

NOTE:  I received an ARC of this book via Edelweiss in order to provide a review. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

“That was the paradox of his life. To be stretched out on a sort of Catherine wheel, pulled between equal and utterly opposing desires. And if you believed the legend of the Eternity Oak, he has only himself to blame.”

FINAL DECISION: No one does the slow burn romance better than Julie Anne Long. Destiny and fate, decision and mistake, the pushing and pulling of characters live.  Glory and Eli are characters that feel fated and yet fate can be fickle.  Loved this one.

THE STORY:  Glory Greenleaf and Eli Barlow have been moving toward and away from one another almost all their lives. They grew up together in their small hometown and their lives have always been connected because Eli was Glory’s older brother’s best friend.  At seventeen Eli carved their initials on the Eternity Tree which by local legend sealed his fate. He has loved Glory in the decade since but they have not gotten together. A year ago it seemed like things were finally moving toward them being together when Eli had to arrest Glory’s brother. Since that day, Glory has refused to talk to Eli.

OPINION:  A story about fate and freewill about a love that is destined to be and life which gets in the way.  Glory and Eli are a couple that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I finished reading this book over a week ago. I held off writing this review because it is hard for me to put into words why I find this book so appealing.

This is a second – third – fourth chance at love story.  Eli and Glory have been so close so many times to having a relationship but decisions, situations and life keep getting in their way.  As this book progresses it seems like once again Eli and Glory might pass one another by.

Eli is completely devoted to Glory. He is the man who is willing to stand beside and behind Glory — who Eli knows is an amazing woman. He has been satisfied with the idea of being Sir Walter Raleigh to Glory’s Queen Elizabeth. Honest, dedicated and a genuinely good person, Eli has finally come to the decision that he needs to build a life for himself apart from Glory.

Glory is a woman who comes from a family from the “wrong side of the tracks”. Everyone knows that she is an amazing singer who is destined for more. A year ago it seemed likely that she was on her way.  But when her brother was arrested for drug dealing by Eli, not only did it destroy the budding romance between Eli and Glory, but it also left Glory with a series of dead-end jobs rather than her flight to stardom.

This is a book of small moments, little decisions, close calls, missed opportunities and choices. I loved in this book how Eli and Glory are so obviously fated to be together and yet fate is not enough. They both have choices. Choices that can bring them together or drive them apart. The combination of fate and choices makes the story of Eli and Glory powerful and left me thinking.

One of the other wonderful things about this book is how completely Long has captured the small town world. Her secondary characters are memorable and fun and they create a sense of community and interest. Hellcat Canyon has a true sense of place, of identity. I feel like I could drive up the California coast and right into this story.

And perhaps that is why I can’t stop thinking about this story. Everything about this story feels so real to me.  Glory’s ambition and dreams and hopes. The pain and sorrow that keeps Eli and Glory apart. The strange, snarky California vibe that combines celebrity with quirky places.

This is a book I will read again and again. (I already have a playlist of the songs mentioned in this book on my phone).  Bravo!

WORTH MENTIONING: Pornographic garden gnomes. (Do you need any other information to try this book?)

CONNECTED BOOKS:  WILD AT WHISKEY CREEK is the second book in the Hellcat Canyon series. This book can be read as a standalone although there are overlapping characters.

STAR RATING:  I give this book 5 stars.

“Somehow he’d forgotten the sort of pleasure that could be had in making someone happy for no reason at all.

“He frankly couldn’t think of the last time anyone else had tried to make him happy for no reason at all.”

FINAL DECISION:  Full of the emotional complexity, beautiful enthralling descriptions of love and stuggle and pain that readers have come to expect from Julie Anne Long, HOT IN HELLCAT CANYON is Long’s first contemporary.  Thankfully, the answer to the question of whether Long’s style could work in contemporary romance is an enthusiastic yes!

THE STORY:  Britt Langley is a waitress in Hellcat Canyon who has rebuilt her life in the protective womb of the small town.  Then a man walks into the diner where she works and threatens to blow her safe little world apart.  John Tennessee McCord, a small town boy, who grew up to be a Hollywood star, recognizes Hellcat Canyon’s small town atmosphere and finds himself pulled towards something there that he knows he has lost.  With a faltering career and an infamous breakup, J.T. seems to be guided to Hellcat Canyon by his broken down truck.  Two people who want no commitments begin an affair but find that what they find together is not what they expected.

OPINION:  I became a huge fan of Julie Anne Long through her Pennyroyal Green series. I found her books in that series to have a deeply emotional, lyrical quality with characters who are complex, clever and who always managed to capture my attention.  When I read that after her triumphant book THE LEGEND OF LYON REDMOND, Long was turning to contemporary books, I mourned a bit.  You see, I’ve been on this road before with authors who turn away from the very things that I loved about them to attempt a more popular genre.  So it was with not just a little trepidation that I began this book.

I’m happy to report that Long’s style has transferred beautifully to the contemporary genre.

HOT IN HELLCAT CANYON is not a modern version of Pennyroyal Green and yet there are similarities that I loved.  Long has a great ability to construct small towns with souls.  Hellcat Canyon feels like a place I might not have been but could imagine going with characters and relationships that feel classic and yet not stereotypical.  I laughed out loud at the owner of the local “inn” who collects cherub angels the quantity of which begins to drive J.T. crazy.  Yet Long does not leave this woman as a joke.  Her obsession is explained with sympathy which gives complexity to those quirky qualities which we all have.  I have a great fondness for books grounded in a strong sense of place and time. Hellcat Canyon is a place I feel I could visit and the reality of that place gives the book an automatic depth from which to build the relationship between Britt and J.T.

Britt and J.T. are both afraid of commitment. For different reasons, neither wants more than a short term affair when they first meet.  Painful pasts, fears and uncertainties plague both of them.  It becomes obvious, however, that despite their overt intentions, in their hearts, both are starving for love, protection, and acceptance.  The romance between them is beautifully constructed.  It is a story of small everyday moments, peaceful acceptance, and the intense joy of finding someone who cares for and about you.  Towards the end of the book J.T. gives a magnificent exegesis on love that captures for me the beauty of the relationship in this book: “But in real life, it’s the little things.  Maybe it’s peanut butter in the house because she knows you like it…And it’s in the silences.  In how you enjoy everyday things more, like reading, because she’s reading next to you.”

Not that there isn’t drama and angst in this book.  There are ex-girlfriends, and painful pasts and seemingly incompatible presents to be worked through for these two to find a HEA.  But the real essence of the book is the human experience of love and home.

I loved this book and I can’t wait to read about the couple in the next book in the series.  There seems to be some history there that ups the possibility for angst and drama.

WORTH MENTIONING:  Two words: billboard graffiti.  Read the book, you’ll understand.

CONNECTED BOOKS: HOT IN HELLCAT CANYON is the first book in the Hellcat Canyon series.

STAR RATING:  I give this book 5 stars.

NOTE:  I received an ARC of this book in order to provide a review.  I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.